Located approximately one and one-half miles north of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, the park is bounded by Sixteenth Street on the west, Euclid Street on the north, Fifteenth Street on the east, and W Street on the south. It was constructed 1912-1936. Meridian Hill is a Federal Park, owned and maintained by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of Interior.
One of the first public parks in the United States to be designed as a formal park, generally considered to be in the continental tradition, rather than in the "natural" mode associated with the English park; Meridian Hill Park was constructed over a period of about twenty five years. Horace W. Peaslee, the architect in charge, based his work on a preliminary design by George Burnap, landscape architect. In this formal park the architectural and horticultural elements work together in a symbiotic manner. Under the guidance of the Commission of Fine Arts, the park benefited from the finest criticism of the day. The technologically innovative use of exposed aggregate concrete provided a facsimile of the stone and mosaic masonry traditionally employed in the Italian Garden. The Park represents an effort in a democratic society to match the major European city park. Located just outside of the original city at the first line of hills, and directly north of the White House, the park conforms to the plan proposed by Pierre Charles L'Enfant and his associates, and the plan proposed a century later by the Senate Park Commission, the Plan of 1901 (commonly called The McMillan Commission Plan)
Nearby Neighborhoods
Street Names
15th Street NW • 16th Street NW • Euclid Street NW • W Street NW